New Zealand Coffee Festival

When my man from the Oever Caffènation bar Dieter H came back from New Zealand he had this Hawthorne bag with him. Excellent coffee from a great company from a coffee crazy country.

Every year they have this New Zealand Coffee Festival. And again Hawthorne won some prices, although the biggest winner was Toasted Espresso (click link below).
Also interesting to find back Carl Sara at the Latte Art Championship results. Bronze at the WBC and silver now ; what a Barista!

Toasted Espresso win the Supreme award for NZ roasters! The small Auckland Roaster, Toasted Espresso, won the Flat white section of the annual NZ Coffee Awards and also took out the top honour. Owner Chris Innes has been a regular medal winner over the last few years, but was 'blown away' to hear that he had bagged the biggest prize of all.

Head Judge, Instaurator, once again praised the quality, innovation and passion of the NZ roasting industry. He and a team of 12 judges tasted well over 200 individual blends of coffee over a 3 day period and whittled the best of the roasts into Gold, Silver and Bronze medal winners lists.

See full results here

The inaugural Equal New Zealand Latte Art Championships - and the winner is...

The 2007 winner of the Equal New Zealand Latte Art championship was Andrew Feldon from Streetwise Coffee in Sanson. This small town barista upset the recent 3rd place-getter at the World Barista Championships, Carl Sara, and his fellow Black Cup team-mates, Luciano Marcolino and David Huang to snare the $2000 prize before an audience of several hundred.

1st - Andrew Feldon - Streetwise Coffee, Sanson

2nd equal - Carl Sara - Muffin Break, Christchurch

2nd equal - David Huang - Independent barista trainer

4th - Scott Pepler - Robert Harris, Auckland

5th - Luciano Marcolino - Vivace, Christchurch.

6th - Joanne Lawson - Robert Harris, Rotorua

Da Vinci Trans-Tasman Barista Championship.

Sadly the Cafetto NZ Black Cups narrowly succumbed in the first leg of this event to the Baristaroos. The kiwis, featuring Carl Sara, three time NZ national champion, Luciano Marcolino also a previous NZ champion and David Huang were pipped by the Aussies again. But hey, they gave it a great shot, egged on by the supportive kiwi crowd whipped up by MC John Riley and team leader Chris White. The second leg in Adelaide in October will decide who gets to keep the Trans-Tasman trophy.